"I have always thought of Christmas time . . . as a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely. . . ."
A Christmas Carol,
Charles Dickens
AS sometimes happens, this week's column began with one idea, took on a life of its own and insisted upon traveling a parallel road.
So from last week's story of many people giving gifts, to this tale of one small miracle: a baby whose name will forever be linked to the history of medicine in British Columbia.
Miracles don't come easily; but out of the concern he always showed for improving the lives of children, I like to think the centuries-long road to this baby's heart is one Charles Dickens might have wanted to travel.
Weighing in at a healthy seven pounds 11 ounces, Addison Yong McArthur was born at Vancouver Women's and Children's Hospital on April 12.
She appeared to be thriving until early evening on May 3, when she refused her feeds and felt cold to the touch.
Her parents rushed her to Burnaby General Hospital where she was initially thought to have a serious but undetermined infection.
Concerned about her low temperature and lethargy, the emergency-room doctors conferred with physicians at B.C. Children's Hospital and the decision was made to transfer her there for further evaluation - and that was when her parents, Global television reporters Aaron McArthur and Elaine Yong, entered the Twilight Zone.
The diagnosis was swift and chilling: Addie's heart was enlarged and failing.
Within six hours of admission to Children's, she was placed on a heart-lung bypass - essentially, that meant life support.
The time bomb was ticking and the couple was gently cautioned that their beautiful and apparently healthy daughter was in cardiac failure and might not make it.
Despite a faint hope that, with the rest afforded by the bypass, her own heart might strengthen and show signs of recovery, it soon became obvious Addie's only hope for survival was a heart transplant, an operation usually performed in Edmonton.
But as McArthur told me, "Addison was too sick to move."
The surgery would need to be done in Vancouver - if, that is, a donor heart could be found in time.
The time constraint was critical for several reasons, not the least of which was the fact that Addison was not even one month old.
As McArthur and Yong were to learn, there is a limit to the length of time any patient can be maintained on bypass. Usually, after five to seven days, a switch to a mechanical heart must be considered - a procedure fraught with its own risks.
But if anything about Addison's ordeal can be said to be lucky, it is that so many people came together at the right time and place to work in her corner.
The first piece of luck was that the cardiologist caring for Addison at Children's was Dr. Sanjiv Gandhi, who has performed more than 100 of these operations.
"Gandhi," as McArthur explained, "is one of the top pediatric cardiac surgeons in the world. He was brought to Children's with a promise of a new facility and the creation of a transplant programme."
In a Dec. 8 conversation, Yong explained that as soon as the decision was made to try for the transplant, Gandhi's team flew into action.
"We were so fortunate," she said. "On May 5th, Addison was listed on the cross-Canada transplant list through the transplant team at B.C. Children's Hospital."
Going through the "same process as any other patient in Canada needing an organ, Addison was at the very top of the list, I believe Status 4, which means she was on life support," Yong said.
Thinking of the stories we all have heard about wait lists, it was hard for the parents to hope that a tiny heart - the size of a walnut - would arrive in time to save Addison's life.
Yet early on May 8, Gandhi called and asked to speak to Addison's mother, "We have a Mother's Day gift for you; we have a heart!"
After a nine-hour operation, and many anxious hours waiting for the transplanted heart to beat strongly on its own, Addison went home after only four weeks in hospital.
A bittersweet story this, because that gift meant that parents who had lost their 14-day old infant had found the courage to donate their baby's organs to save the lives of others.
"We were incredibly lucky, the exception to the rule," McArthur stressed. "You can't talk about transplant without talking about the need for more donations.
"While BC Transplant does a great job with what they have . . . too many organs are ignored in B.C. because not enough people are donors."
The happy laughter in Yong's voice as we talked about her daughter was all it took to remind me that miracles can, indeed, happen.
As Dickens might have written: God bless them, every one!
